Chapter 2

Riku was outside taking practice swings with his wooden sword. School had let out about two hours ago and he always liked to wind down by practicing for his sparring class on the sandy banks by the paopu tree. It had been two days since he had rescued the girl from drowning. She was still sleeping soundly at the clinic, but the doctors said that she could wake any time now. Since the incident, many people from the town were calling Riku a hero. Not that he minded, in fact he rather liked his new title. Riku the hero, he thought, creating a heroic pose with a smug look. Finally something interesting had happened around the island.

That still left the girl he saved. He hadn't worked up the courage to go visit her yet. Despite his pride and two best friends, he wasn't exactly good with people. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, where she came from, what her world was like; but he wasn't sure if she would even be willing to talk about it. She might end up being like Kairi and not remember anything at all. Still, he knew he had to try; even if he was nervous about talking with her. He sighed as he looked towards the clinic. "Well, I guess now is as good a time as any." He mumbled to himself and began to walk across the wooden bridge, holding his sword over his shoulder.

A bell rang as Riku opened the door to the clinic and a young man at the front desk looked up at him. He walked up to the counter and cleared his throat before speaking, "Hi, I'm here to visit a girl that came here a couple days ago."

The man knew exactly who he was talking about and stood up to show Riku where to go. He led him to the back down a hallway filled with different rooms for various patients. Then about halfway down the man stopped and opened the door to where the girl was. Riku just nodded thanks as he walked inside and the door closed behind him. He sighed as he looked around the room. The room was mostly bare; there was a small bed with medical equipment surrounding it and a wooden chair next to the bed. A large window on the same wall as the bed had a pleasant view of the ocean and surrounding town. He slowly walked up to the chair and sat down. Once he was seated he looked over at the bed where the girl was sleeping. She looked about the same age as Riku and had long red hair that was a little bit brighter than Kairi's. As he was looking at her a female nurse walked into the room and was startled when she saw Riku.

"Just here to check her vitals," the nurse chimed, "I'm surprised she has any visitors, given that nobody seems to know who she is."

Riku changed his gaze up to greet the nurse but didn't say anything. There wasn't really anything to be said. He was not sure himself why he was there. It's not like she would notice whether he was or not. He watched as the woman checked the girl's blood pressure and did other tests. After watching for a few minutes he decided that no one was benefitting from him being there and got up to leave. As he was about to close the door behind him the nurse called, "I think she may be waking up!"

Riku ran back into the room to see if she was indeed waking up. The girl's brown eyes fluttered open and she looked sleepily around the room. Moments passed as the girl began to become more aware of her surroundings. Riku was sure she would begin to panic since she most likely had no idea where she was, but instead the girl just took everything in. The nurse gently put her hand on the girl's arm, "Don't worry Miss, you are completely safe. You are in Destiny Islands and arrived here about two days ago when you fell unconscious into the ocean. Since then you have been in this hospital" She paused to let the girl take in all the information, "May I ask what your name is?"

A coughing fit interrupted the girl before being able to speak, "My name is Hinata." She slowly sat up despite the nurse's complaints of her moving, "I don't suppose you have seen my sister, Aiko."

The nurse gave Riku a troubled look before replying to Hinata, "I'm sorry Miss, but to the best of our knowledge, you are the only person here from wherever you came from."

Hinata's eyes closed as she brought her hands to her face and groaned. That was the last thing she needed to hear. But this wasn't the time to worry about it. At least she was safe and alive, thanks to a young man who had saved her life. "Speaking of which," she accidentally spoke out loud as she lowered her hands and looked past the nurse at Riku, "By chance are you the one who… saved me?"

Realizing it was probably her cue to leave the nurse backed away, "I should go tell the doctor that you're up Miss Hinata."

As the nurse left Riku walked back to the wooden chair by Hinata's bed and sat down before telling her everything that had happened when he saved her life. While he spoke she leaned back in her bed and took in everything he was saying. She couldn't believe what she was hearing; falling from the sky, almost dying, and without even realizing what had happened. Once Riku finished telling her everything, Hinata turned her head towards him, "Thank you for saving me."

Riku felt his cheeks flush, "Don't worry about it. Anyone else would have done it in my place." Even though he loved the attention, he wasn't about to let her know that. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes before Riku spoke up again, "So… um, I don't know if this is too soon to be asking, but, do you have any memory of where you came from or how you got here?"

Hinata sat up and brought her knees to her chest, "I do, but,"

Before she could continue, doctors burst into the room being led by the chirpy nurse from earlier. Hinata was being bombarded with needles and questions from them. Riku was trying to just sit patiently in the wooden chair but the nurse grabbed his arm and led him out the door saying something about patient confidentiality. All Riku could do was quickly call out to Hinata, "I'll be back tomorrow!" before being shoved out of the room and having the door closed in his face. He hit his head against the door, finally he meets someone who can tell him of the outside world and he has to wait until tomorrow to learn more about it. He lightly kicked the bottom of the door with frustration before turning to leave the hospital.

Outside the hospital Kairi was waiting for Sora so they could start their research, as Sora was calling it. They had agreed to wait until the thrill about Riku's heroic act had died down before conducting their own research about Kairi's past.

"Hey Kairi," Sora chirped in his usual upbeat manner as he jogged up to Kairi, "Ready to do some research?" He gave her thumbs up and a big grin. Kairi chuckled and gave Sora a warm smile. He always knew how to cheer her up. Riku thought that Sora's constant optimism could be too much to handle sometimes, but Kairi didn't mind it. It helped keep her feet on the ground.

"Let's do it!" She claimed, trying to match Sora's mood, "Maybe we should ask Riku to join. He might know a good place to start."

"Sure thing," Sora agreed, "But where can we find him?"

Right when the words left Sora's mouth, Riku walked out of the hospital and stopped when he noticed his friends, "Hey guys, what are you two doing here?"

Sora and Kairi looked at each other and began to laugh. Riku just looked at them confused, "What are you laughing about?"

Kairi composed herself and reached one arm behind her back to grab the other, "Oh nothing, we were just talking about you; wanted to know if you would want to join us."

"Yeah," Sora continued leaning one arm on Kairi, "We are doing some research to see if anyone remembers the day Kairi came to Destiny Islands."

Riku crossed his arms and looked at the ground, he was glad he found these two. They would help him get his mind off Hinata for a while. "Well," he started, "I think a good place to start would be writing down everything you do remember about the day you came here. Do you have a journal to write down your findings?"

Kairi rummaged through a backpack she had been carrying with her and pulled out a green journal with a gold outline of a cricket. Riku grabbed it and held it up, "Why do you have a journal with a cricket on it?"

She grabbed it back, "Because," she defended, "it's cute and crickets are a sign of good luck!"

The three of them laughed as they went to a picnic table nearby to begin writing. Kairi opened the journal and began to read aloud as she wrote, "I don't really remember much of anything when I came here. I do remember having to meet couples that wanted to adopt me." She paused after writing that. The parents that ended up adopting her were wonderful to her and she thought of them as her own mom and dad. But to think that she could have parents out there missing her, while she couldn't even remember their faces, was too much to bear. Before she could stop it, Kairi could feel tears falling onto her journal pages. Sora and Riku looked up at each other with worry in their eyes. Maybe trying to look back at buried memories wasn't such a great idea. Sora wrapped an arm around Kairi in comfort and Riku grabbed her journal, putting it back into her bag. They would have to continue their research another day.

**Author's Notes: Hinata is pronounced /hee-nah-tah/ and is Japanese for "Facing the Sun"

Aiko is pronounced /ah-ee-ko/ and is Japanese for (ai) "love, affection" and (ko) "child"

Everything other than my OC everything in this story belongs to Square Enix. Thank you for reading!**